This is the arresting 150-year story of one of the oldest and most illustrious merchant banks, and of the men, George Peabody and J.P. Morgan, who built it. The book chronicles Morgan Grenfell's role in financing British oversea purchases during World War I, in taking the lead among the private London bankers in reconstructing Europe during the 1920s, and in pioneering the new field of corporate finance. By the 1980s, Morgan Grenfell was the most powerful and feared corporate finance house in London, but as a consequence of the October 1987 stock market crash, Morgan Grenfell withdrew from the securities business to concentrate on areas of traditional strength. Based on a wide range of original sources, this book is unmatched as a banking history: no other author has combined unrestricted access to the bank's archives with a narrative of events up to the 1980s.